HIAS: From Helping Jewish Immigrants to Welcoming All Refugees

The Door That Was Open

Between 1881 and 1924, more than two million Jews left Eastern Europe for the United States. They fled pogroms, poverty, conscription into hostile armies, and a future that offered no future. They arrived at Ellis Island with bundles, children, and the names of relatives scribbled on pieces of paper. Many spoke no English. Many had never been in a city the size of New York. Many were terrified.

Waiting for them — sometimes literally at the dock — was the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, known as HIAS. Founded in 1881 in response to the mass Russian Jewish immigration triggered by the pogroms of that year, HIAS became the organization that helped Jewish immigrants navigate their first hours, days, and weeks in America. It provided translators, legal aid, temporary shelter, job placement, and the simple human comfort of being greeted in your own language by people who understood what you had been through.

For millions of American Jews, HIAS is part of their family story — the organization that helped a grandparent or great-grandparent find their footing in a new world.

The Ellis Island Years

During the great wave of immigration from 1881 to 1924, HIAS maintained a permanent presence at Ellis Island. Its representatives met arriving ships, helped immigrants through the inspection process, and intervened when people were threatened with deportation. HIAS lawyers fought cases on behalf of immigrants who were denied entry, and the organization’s shelter on the Lower East Side of Manhattan provided temporary housing for those with nowhere else to go.

The need was enormous. At its peak, Ellis Island processed thousands of immigrants per day, and the system was designed more for efficiency than compassion. HIAS ensured that Jewish immigrants had an advocate — someone who spoke their language, understood their culture, and could navigate the bureaucratic maze on their behalf.

When the Immigration Act of 1924 drastically restricted immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe, the flood became a trickle. But HIAS adapted, turning its attention to helping immigrants already in the United States and to those seeking entry through other channels.

The Refugee Crisis of the 1930s and 1940s

As the Nazi threat grew in Europe, HIAS became a lifeline for Jewish refugees trying to escape. The organization lobbied for more generous immigration quotas, helped refugees obtain visas, and provided resettlement services for those who made it to the United States.

The work was heartbreakingly constrained. American immigration policy in the 1930s was restrictive, and political will to accept large numbers of refugees was lacking. HIAS and other Jewish organizations worked within a system that turned away far more people than it admitted. The SS St. Louis — the ship carrying 937 Jewish refugees that was turned away from Cuba and the United States in 1939 — became a symbol of that failure.

After the Holocaust, HIAS played a central role in resettling the surviving remnant. It helped displaced persons navigate the complex immigration process, sponsored families, and provided the support structure that turned refugees into Americans.

Soviet Jewry and the Last Great Wave

In the 1970s and 1980s, HIAS turned its attention to Soviet Jews — millions of whom lived under a regime that suppressed Jewish identity while simultaneously identifying them as Jewish on their internal passports. When the Soviet Union began allowing limited emigration, HIAS was ready.

The organization processed hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jewish refugees, first through transit points in Vienna and Rome, and later through direct flights to the United States and Israel. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 triggered another wave, and HIAS facilitated the resettlement of hundreds of thousands more.

This was the last large-scale Jewish migration, and it forced HIAS to confront a question about its future: with Jewish immigration declining, what should an organization built on helping Jewish immigrants become?

The Transformation

The answer came from the Torah itself. The Hebrew Bible commands Jews to welcome the stranger — ger — no fewer than 36 times. “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9). HIAS’s leadership recognized that this commandment was not limited to Jewish strangers.

In the early 2000s, HIAS began expanding its mission to serve refugees of all backgrounds. The transition was not without controversy — some supporters felt the organization should remain focused on Jewish needs. But HIAS argued that its identity was fundamentally about the Jewish experience of being refugees and the moral obligation that experience creates.

The organization’s motto crystallized the shift: “Welcome the stranger. Protect the refugee.” As HIAS leaders put it: “We used to help refugees because they were Jewish. Now we help refugees because we are Jewish.”

HIAS Today

Today, HIAS operates in more than 20 countries, providing legal services, resettlement support, and community integration programs to refugees regardless of their religion or nationality. It assists refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Central America, Africa, and wherever displacement occurs.

In the United States, HIAS works with local communities to resettle refugees, providing case management, English language instruction, employment assistance, and cultural orientation. It also advocates for refugee-friendly policies at the federal level.

The organization has faced threats directly. In 2018, a gunman attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing eleven worshippers. The shooter had posted antisemitic content online targeting HIAS specifically for its refugee work. The tragedy underscored both the risks of the organization’s mission and the deep connection between Jewish values and the work of welcoming strangers.

The Jewish Obligation

HIAS’s evolution from a Jewish immigrant aid society to a global refugee organization is one of the most powerful expressions of Jewish ethics in action. It takes the central Jewish experience — being strangers, being refugees, being unwanted — and transforms it into a moral imperative to help others in the same situation.

The Torah’s repeated commandment to care for the stranger is not abstract for an organization that spent its first century caring for Jewish strangers. HIAS knows what it means to arrive in a new country with nothing, because it has been at the door for over 140 years, welcoming people in.